Cuba! An eight day home-stay tour of Western Cuba – Day 8
Casa garden
We’re up early today for our drive back to Havana. I start the day with a quiet half hour in the courtyard garden of our home-stay casa, catching up on my journal and soaking in the last few minutes in this beautiful space. Breakfast is soon on the table – eggs, fresh fruit and today a white, gluey fruit loaded with large black seeds – guanaba. It’s a bit challenging to get at but worth the effort.
The mood, as we pile our bags into the back of the van is a little subdued. I’m thinking about the end of our tour approaching. It seems like a lot longer than eight days but I don’t think I’m the only one who’s not ready for it to end. I’m going to miss these wonderful
women, our uber-intelligent and animated guide, Jorge and our stoic and capable driver, Pedro. We have another long day on the road today back to Havana but will stop half-way at the Che Memorial in Santa Clara. Dani, Margurite and I luck into the comfy front seat for the first leg. We all pass the time by peppering Jorge with our questions about local custom, Fidel, Cuba and Cubans, Jorge’s own life and his travel experiences. He responds to all knowledgably and with good-humour. I think he must have heard these same questions about a million times but you wouldn’t know it. He’s a real professional. We also swap bad jokes.
Roadside banos!
We’ve been driving for a while when the morning coffee begins to take effect but we are in the middle of nowhere with no really good options for a bathroom break. Jorge directs Pedro to pull over along a sugar cane field and they laughingly invite us to pick out a spot but no one wants to wade across the ten feet of deep mud to get into the cane, so we drive on. There are small homes at intervals along the road and we pull up in front of one. Don’t try this at home….Jorge strides up to the front door and with all the charm we’ve seen through our week with him he asks the woman who answers his knock if some of our group might use her bathroom! A number of our group are relieved (pun intended) in the nick of time. Dani gives one of her pens to a little guy who peeks out from behind his mom, watching strange women in designer sunglasses traipse in and out of their home. Such an incredible illustration of life here, of simple courtesies and the dependence on each other that feeds the immense pride of country we’ve seen in everyone we’ve met in the past week.
The Che Memorial in Santa Clara is beautiful and impressive. A broad expanse of marble walkway is lined with low walls and dominated by a towering bronze of the man himself in mid-stride, rifle at his side looking toward the Sierra Maestra Mountains where many of his battles were fought. A museum at the memorial has many artifacts of the revolution, weapons, photographs, medical instruments (he studied medicine in university) and original notes and letters all in remarkably good condition. We spent almost an hour browsing the displays and hearing an overview from the docent before going into the cool, quiet mausoleum under the memorial. No photos permitted. Jorge has described the difficulties overcome by Fidel Castro to recover the body of his friend after Che was assassinated in Bolivia, adding to our sense of reverence for the place. The walls of the mausoleum are blocks of yellow-golden, edge-cut lumber broken by vertical rows of marble burial chambers that identify each man with a bas relief of his head, and his name. I take the time to read each one. Che’s burial chamber, his profile with distinctive beret is set out slightly from the rest. A single orange gladiola in a small glass tube is attached to the wall beside each chamber and the lighting is intentionally low, augmented by an eternal flame set in a raised area of the floor at the far end of the low-ceilinged room. Before leaving the memorial we browse the bookstore which has a good selection of books on the revolution, Fidel Castro and Che in Spanish and English.
On the way out of Santa Clara we stop at a palador for cheeseburgers and beer and then Dani, Margurite and I settle in to make the last leg of the journey in the backseat. I pull out an old Saturday Crossword from the Globe and Mail – “Canada’s National Newspaper” – and we set to filling in the blanks. In spite of our hilarity as we strain to come up with an eleven letter word for….Jo, Nicola and Priti nod off in the front seat. At some point, needing to get the kinks out of our cramped legs we finagle our feet up in front of us and stretch our legs out to rest them on the back of the front seat. Jorge takes photos of our six feet and thirty toes hanging like an awning over the heads of the group in the front seat, who are fast asleep and oblivious to our antics.
Havana feels much too busy after our week of adventure in the country, and the reception at the Nacional distinctly chilly after the warm greetings and welcoming smiles of our home stay hosts. The lobby is crowded and noisy and the woman at the front desk is distracted and inattentive. Everyone at this hotel seems to be trying to do three things at one time, carrying on multiple conversations at the expense, I think of good service. We are sorry to have to say good bye to our driver, Pedro before we check in. I’m relieved that the concierge is able to locate the suitcase that I left in storage last week and I do manage to get checked into Room 218, once occupied by Nat King Cole. The room is decorated with photos and anecdotes from his stay here, including the caveat that he did not stay at the Nacional on his first two trips to Havana, as in those days blacks were not permitted as guests.
Pre-game!
Our last group dinner is at Emperado, in the “second-tallest” building in Havana and a very short walk from the hotel. Pre-game drinks are in the modern, minimally furnished cocktail bar on the top floor of the building. The place gives the impression of being neon pink and has floor-to-ceiling windows with a stunning view of the sea, the malecon and most of Havana. Our view is partially obstructed by the condensation that runs thickly down the inside of the windows of this 33-storey apartment building and I wonder briefly if there are such things as building construction by-laws in Cuba. We are in a party mood, having all treated ourselves to long, hot showers or baths at the Nacional and we are dressed for a night out. We order exotic Cuban cocktails. I like one called a ‘campahrina’ or something like that and Jorge gets kick out of hearing me try to order it. Whatever it’s called, it’s yummy. Both of them. Okay…all of them.
We’ve had a couple, or maybe a few cocktails by the time we head down for dinner and that makes ordering our meal something of a challenge. It’s all screamingly funny. At some point Nicola tries to charm one of the hostesses in the restaurant out of her lace stockings and I sing a duet of Patsy Cline’s “Crazy” with the keyboard player who naively approaches our table with a microphone. We dine up-scale on chateaubriand and lobster. Jorge takes a phone call in the middle of dinner and we insist on all taking a turn saying inebriated Holas! to whoever is on the other end. I hope it wasn’t his mother! Cameras are passed around to capture this last supper together and restaurant staff are good natured about being pressed into service for group shots. We linger over our wine after dinner. Our charming tour guide buys roses for all of us from a street seller and another round of photos ensues. It was a great, hilarious and fitting last evening together. By midnight we have agreed to meet for breakfast in the Nacional in the morning and we drunkenly and reluctantly call it a wrap.
Cuba! An eight-day home stay tour of Western Cuba – Day 7
A tortoise can see the sun move. Margurite and I get into a great conversation over a leisurely breakfast swapping experiences and theories, exploring the ideas of time and space and how much of it could be illusion. She gets me thinking about time from the perspective of the tortoise, who may experience life in ultra-slow motion. To a tortoise, she theorises, time might move so slowly that we are just a blur across their peripheral vision while they watch the sun move across the sky. It’s all very zen like and I completely love the conversation, and the opportunity to slow down my own life such that I have the time to better explore ideas and to know someone like Margurite – one brainy broad. Breakfast is fresh fruit, very dark coffee and an egg cooked any way we’d like it – fried in my case. The lack of variety is a bit tedious by now but more than offset by the great taste of food grown with as few chemical incursions as possible.
Yesterday we had all agreed on our choice of activity for today. Our tour company – Cuban Adventures – has ensured a good variety of activities to choose from throughout the week. So today we will take a short hike through Topes de Callantes national park to Vega Grande waterfalls and the Batata Cave. A great choice as it turns out. It’s a sweltering hot day. Hurricane Rina continues to languish too far out in the Gulf to be any threat. I have unthinkingly given almost all of my clothes to Sol at our casa, who will have them laundered for a very reasonable five dollars. As a result I am dressed for our hike in a tailored linen skirt (!) and flowered top. Charming. We drive out to the park entrance, pay our user- fee and are soon filing across a crude suspension bridge and into the forest of Caribbean pines, bamboo and eucalyptus that carpet the low hills of the Escambray Range. At a level clearing we come to a small hut built a very long time
ago but still in its original state. We’re invited in for a look around and I’m impressed to learn that the floor, which I took to be concrete is actually compressed ash. It’s a simple example of making use of what’s at hand. The rest of the hike is mostly uphill but not particularly taxing and we are soon at the foot of the expansive, thundering waterfall.
We are very hot and sticky and the large pool at the foot of the falls looks oh-so-inviting. We stand in a group, juggling out of our clothes and into our swim suits as discreetly as possible while Jorge stares into the water and are soon all immersed in the deep, clear water just cool enough to be refreshing. Bliss! Margurite strikes out for the cave that opens just to one side of the falls, with Dani close behind. They are both clearly better swimmers than I am but a thick wire cable strung along the side of the pool gives me the confidence to follow into the strong current. The descriptively named Batata Cave is amazing! And as it turns out quite full of bats. Very cool. It’s dark enough to be thrilling but light enough to make out huge stalactites and the colony of little critters hanging from the ceiling or flitting back and forth as we splash around. Margurite has even managed to bring her camera with her, held up in one hand as she swims so I look forward to seeing the cave shots of the three of us at some point. We take turns swimming out of the cave through the waterfall and I’m momentarily alarmed to feel the force of the falling water push me under briefly before I surface and float with the current back to where Priti and Nicola are paddling. Jorge good-naturedly wades into the water to get a great photo of the five of us with the falls in the background (Jo passed on this excursion, preferring to spend the day in Trinidad).
We manage, perched on the rocks at the side of the pool, to get out of our wet suits and back into mostly dry clothes. On the hike back Jorge points out a huge rock overhang literally covered with wasp nests, stacked like tenement buildings against the whole face of the cliff. We don’t linger long and arrive in Trinidad once again hot, sweaty and now feeling somewhat gritty from our damp clothes and the dust of the hike…and we’re starving. We are standing outside the luxurious Iberostar five-star hotel and all Dani can think about is a hamburger. Okay, and maybe a mojito. So we take our dirty and sweaty selves into the immaculately groomed and polished lounge and unabashedly gorge ourselves on big, beefy cheeseburgers, cold beer and mojitos. The talk turns to our own banking crisis. At some point yesterday or the day before we have all agreed to a “bank account” – a pool of money that we can use for expenses where we are all paying the same amount, so we don’t have to count up and fork out every time we do something. Dani has been awarded the position of CFO by acclamation. Well, actually because she happened to have a little change purse that she volunteered for our repository. And we have all kicked $20 into the group account. I’ve fallen into the role of auditor which might seem like overkill except that during lunch at the Iberostar it became apparent that some of us – no names mentioned – would certainly throw the scheme unfairly off-balance by virtue of our alcohol consumption at group outings such as pre-games and post-games. So some monitoring is required to ensure equity. Between us we develop a system of plusses and minuses that works to the satisfaction of all. I am becoming completely attached to this disparate group of women and marvel at how cohesive we are. I begin to realise that the best part of this tour might be the friendships that develop in just eight days through open minds and shared experiences.
We are on our own for the afternoon. Dani and I make a bee-line for the gallery we saw yesterday and agree to meet Margurite and the rest of the group at the craft market near Plaza Mayor. We are both interested in large canvasses that the artists, who are there in the
gallery assure us can be rolled and wrapped to survive our respective journeys home. Dani chooses a gorgeous oil – a woman in sunglasses and a head scarf in soft browns and crèmes, dry-brushed over in horizontal streaks of soft reds and tans. At least that’s how I remember it, Dani! I’m looking for something large and bright for my kitchen and fall for large oil painting in primary colours, a stylised Cuban woman with symbolic face paint, her wide-brimmed hat adorned, Carmen Miranda-like with giant fuits and with big, bodacious tatas that my grandkids will get a kick out of. We enjoy chatting with the two artists while our pieces are wrapped for travel and we take pictures of ourselves with the two of them. It didn’t occur to either of us to take pictures of the paintings to show the rest of the group.
Jazzy bar at...Two Guitars?
By the time we meet up with them Priti and Nicola have reconnoitred the craft market and are able to point out some of the better buys. The market consists of several rows of makeshift stalls selling fridge magnets, wood carvings, domino sets, key chains, crocheted children’s clothing, cars and airplanes fashioned from aluminum cans, wall plaques and various other small crafts. It isn’t long before the wares in one stall begin to look much like all the others and I wonder how the artisans here make their living. There must be fifty or sixty stalls but fewer than twenty potential customers wandering between them. I pick out gifts to take home – an intricate cut-stitch table cloth and a set of colourful, bendable fabric dolls each playing a tiny traditional Cuban instrument.
Two Guitars???
I’m grateful to have time for a nap and a shower (and for the stack of clean clothes that have been left in my room!) before we all meet for pre-game Cuba libres at the Iberostar. Isn’t it just amazing how quickly certain activities become imbedded in our routines? Noted! From there it’s a short walk to a charming restaurant whose name I never did get. The place was hung with guitars everywhere so “Two Guitars” seems likely? Hurricane Rina has started to make her presence known so it’s raining when we duck into the dining-room and the streets are almost deserted. We have the place to ourselves, seated in high backed chairs along a heavy wood table with the big double doors open at one end. From our table we can see the skies suddenly open up, the rain comes down in driving sheets and the street very quickly turns into a river of dirty water. Some of us dash out with an umbrella to have our photos taken standing in the pouring rain, calf-deep in the surging brown soup. “Typhus” runs fleetingly across my mind. Within a short time the rain eases off and, as fast as it came up, the flooding subsides and the street is almost dry again. We watched this cycle repeat itself a couple of times as we ate a delicious dinner of grilled fish, beef and roast chicken. I’m always curious about bathrooms, wherever I go and this restaurant has a sparkling clean and quite charming little room – with a shower. The jazz-themed bar suggests live music but tonight the only sound in the place is our laughter and animated chatter. We are quite happy to linger, sharing the days experiences and comparing purchases.
Typhus
The rain has stopped again by the time we finish dinner so we walk back for post-game drinks at the Iberostar. It has occurred to me that not all of our group drinks like the Aussie’s and Canadians and may not have the budget for it so no one pushes. I also hope our guide is reimbursed for the expense of keeping us company – and ensuring that we all get back to our casas every night. Jorge has plans to take us all to a cave disco but the club is leaking from the rain and besides, no taxi will take us there for fear of getting stuck in the mud on the way. After a couple of very tasty Cuba libres I call it a night and leave the rest of the post-game crowd to close the bar.
Cuba! An eight-day home stay tour of Western Cuba – Day 6
Awakened too early by the rooster in the back yard of our Cienfuegos casa. Half-awake, it sounds to me exactly like ”Shut-the-fuck-uuup!” over and over and over again while I struggle to stay asleep in spite of the raucous din. I finally give up and get up. It’s too early for breakfast so I sit out on the sunny patio, out of sight of the two alsatians, catching up on my journal and watching the foot traffic as people walk into the city center to begin their work day.
A beaming Othalis and Oswaldo bring our breakfast and lay it out on the table in our little kitchen – cheese omelettes, fresh fruit and very strong coffee. Tea for Priti and Nicola. I’m sorry that we only have one night here as it is a lovely spot and I would have liked to get know our hosts better. In the few extra minutes before we meet the rest of our group we learn that Oswaldo is an engineer and Othalis is an economist although neither seems to be heading out to work. It was the same with our Vinales hosts. Julian described himself as a ‘technician’ but in the days we stayed with them he didn’t go anywhere during the day to work. I wonder about the level of active employment in Cuba. Oswaldo apologises profusely for wearing only an undershirt for our photo. I ask how business has been for their home-stay casa, wondering if events in the rest of the world are having an affect on the economy in Cuba. They tell me that their suite is booked for the next six months by ‘Gary’ from Canada, who comes every year and stays all season. I want to do that!
Benny More and friend
The morning is spent touring the beautiful city of Cienfuegos. We walk down the prado, which is much more impressive by daylight. All of the ornate, concrete buildings on both sides of the long, wide boulevard are fronted with tall, stately columns. The wide mall down the centre of the prado is planted with trees and shrubs and dotted with statuary, including a life-size bronze of the Cuban jazz great, Benny More. Walking down a side street toward the central Square that seems to be a common feature of all Cuban towns and cities we pass a very large shop with rows of barbers on one side of the polished floor and rows of hairdressers on the other. This is a state-run barber and beauty shop. As with elsewhere that we’ve been there are occasional monuments to the revolucion and on one corner of the big square a huge billboard of Che, in distinctive beret, Cuban flag in the background with an admonition in spanish for Cubans to respect their hard won rights…or something like that.It’s a gorgeous day, hot and sunny even though Hurricane Rina lurks off the coast between Cuba and the Yucatan Penninsula. I am the only one of our group with full cellular access (thanks to Rogers!) so I keep the group posted on developments but we are far enough south to be out of the way of any effects for now so we wander the park in the hot sunshine. Dani has a handful of inexpensive pens in her pack. We have read online that Cubans appreciate any small items like this. She gives one to a young boy whose mother has allowed us to take a photo and the gesture attracts the attention of a number of older men and women, who begin to follow us around the square asking for money. They do indeed look like they are in desperate straits and that’s inconsistent with my understanding that all Cubans have basic needs – food, housing and healthcare. We have also been told that it is not permitted for Cubans to beg.We drive out toward the bay and stop in front of a gorgeous, moorish looking mansion Palacia del Valle. It’s in the process of being restored and looks like it’s being used as a restaurant and a banquet hall. We wander the elaborately carved hallways and take the spiral staircase up to the rooftop to enjoy the beautiful views out over Punta Gorda. Crude repairs are being made to the finely crafted columns that form part of the rooftop structure and we’re told that the workers are ‘architectural students’.We stop by the spectacular Cienfuegos Yacht Club on the way out of town. Margurite wanders the docks sizing up the various moored catamarans. We have the club to ourselves except for the manager and a couple of staff and we linger on the patio in the sunshine enjoying the view out to the bay. I’m pretty happy that they have a lovely bathroom!
Cienfuegos Yacht Club
The rest of our drive to Trinidad takes us mostly along the beautiful south coastline of Cuba and it goes quickly. Trinidad is larger again than Cienfuegos and certainly appears to be a much older city. It’s a UNECSO World Heritage site. That makes four UNESCO sites for me, if anyone’s counting. The streets are narrow and quite crowded with dog carts, dusty cars and pedestrians making their way along the very narrow sidewalks that edge the roughly cobblestoned streets. Houses with iron grates at the windows and storefronts with gaping doors form solid walls along the ancient roads.We pull up on a very narrow street indistinguishable from all the other streets and stop in front of the large, heavy wood door of a yellow building with grated windows. This is where Margurite and I will stay for the next two nights. The iron hinges creak as we wrestle our bags through the door into the cool, tiled darkness of a formal sitting room. A sofa and matching chairs upholstered in a tapestry-like fabric are arranged symetrically around a low, graceful table that displays a number of small carvings. Large, dark bureaus and hutches hunker against the walls loaded down with photos and ornaments. Two doors to our left lead into bedrooms and in the opposite corner a staircase leads to the upstairs. We are introduced to Sol, a young woman of very few words who shows us through the sitting room toward the back of the house and into a large formal dining room furnished with an ornately-carved dark wood table and chairs and several matching sideboards, all burgeoning with stacks of fine china, silver and serving pieces. Beyond that, and open to the rest of the house except for an iron security gate is a lush walled garden around a mossy brick patio, deep green and cool in the heat and humidity, with several inviting iron rocking chairs and a bird in a bamboo cage. Margurites room is off the garden, adjoining the tiny kitchen in the corner and my large, bright yellow, thickly shuttered room is off the dining room. I’m very happy to find that the heavy yellow shutters open onto the garden. This feels like a place where I could spend some time. I’m drawn to the enchanting garden. It’s very hot and sticky and we have a quick shower before gathering up the rest of the girls for lunch. Their shared rooms are much more sparse – two rooms built on either side of the roof of a two storey house a few doors up the street from ours, with a steep staircase covered at the top by a rebar grate. This contraption would never get by a risk manager! We have lunch standing on the narrow sidewalk across from the casa – big, fluffy “peso pizzas” folded in half and dripping grease through the stiff brown paper wrappers. They come in two variations – with ham or without. They are being made and sold by a couple of guys hanging out the window of the casa across the street and they are delicious!
- Peso Pizzas
After lunch Jorge gives us a quick orientation of our neighbourhood – the streets really do all look the same and are laid out at angles and dead ends that make it almost impossible to get our bearings. I have a pretty sound sense of direction most times but I am very careful not to get left behind by the tour for fear I won’t find my way back to anyplace recognisable. Dani and I are distracted by a gallery along the way, lingering to admire a couple of large and very intriguing paintings. We hurry to catch up with the group but are determined to try to find our way back to the gallery again when we have time. Our tour culminates in Plaza Mayor, a large and open space at the top of a very old cobblestoned street that we enter through an iron gate. The large square blocks of stone that run like a spine down the middle of the worn and uneven stones that pave this street were originally used as ballast in the ships that called at Trinidad in the early days of shipping. The plaza is dominated by the pre-requisite Roman Catholic church with a tall bell tower that, perched on this rise in the middle of the city, overlooks most of Trinidad and on the opposite end a long bank of wide, well-worn stone steps between rows of tall trees, with various low buildings on each side and at the top. Jorge says that anyone who has not been to The Steps leading up to the Casa de la Musica, has not been to Trindad. Walking back to our casas Jorge reinforces how to get back from the plaza – three blocks (a relative term here) and then left and left. Or is it left and right? We devise our own orienteering method. We turn left onto Colon Street then right onto our own street, Gracias and remember it with the phrase “Thanks for the colonoscopy!” It may have been me who came up with that phrase. And it may have been after a couple of cuervesa’s at Plaza Mayor later that evening.
- Plaza Mayor – the sign on the donkey says “photos $1″
Our orientation completed, we are all very happy to head for the beach, which is a twenty minute ride by van from the city. Someone wonders why the city is not built on the coast and we speculate, on the drive out about the role of religion and of imposed standards of modesty in this hot, humid place where 95% of the population are Roman Catholic. I wonder about freedom of religion, the level of tolerance for alternate lifestyles and at the noticable absence of the ethnic diversity that I am accustomed to seeing in Canada.The beach is perfect! We park our sweltering bodies under a grass cabana, order a couple of lounge chairs and mojitos from the oh-so-convenient beach bar and settle in for a couple of hours of serious lounging. The water has been stirred up by the hurricane out in the gulf. It’s murky and slightly sandy instead of the clear blue of travel posters but its wonderfully warm and soothing.
We all ate at our casas on this night. Eating with our hosts is part of the home-stay experience and we are told that hosts really like the opportunity to meet and talk with people from abroad. There are only two places set. Margurite and I dine together and Alberto, who we think is the patriarch in this well-appointed multi-family home but whom we have not met until now, serves us in the style of a waiter at a high end restaurant. I feel slightly uncomfortable with this arrangement and as he slips into a creme coloured vest and wraps a bow tie around his shirt collar I wonder if he is playing a game or a charade. He pads silently back and forth from the kitchen in the obsequious manner of Anthony Hopkins playing the butler in “The Remains of the Day” with plates of fresh cucumber, ochre and shredded cabbage and a platter – each! – of fresh buttery lobster. It’s strange but all very tasty and I feel very badly about not being able to eat more. There’s a hint of displeasure from Alberto as he clears our plates.
- Pre-game!
The rest of the girls arrive to meet us and we start the evening with a “pre-game” – a very useful Australian term for a warm up cocktail at the beginning of the evening that we learned from Dani and not to be confused with ‘post-game”. Our pre-game is at the unbelievably civilised 5-star Iberostar Hotel just around the corner from our casas. It’s heaven and I make good use of the exceptionally well-appointed restroom before we head out to The Steps and Casa de la Musica at Plaza Mayor. It’s a very warm evening and we are immediately sticky with humidity. The Steps look entirely different from our first sight of them earlier in the day. Now they are flood-lit in bright colours, patio lights hang in the trees. Half way up the steps is the open Casa de la Musica - cloth-covered tables are arranged around a dance fllor and stage. The band is on a break but salsa music blares from banks of speakers and several couples show off their considerable skills on the dance floor. We order cuervesas, find a spot in the crowds on the steps and perch to watch the dancers. A few Cuban guys are picking out reluctant tourists from the crowd to have a dance. I’d be reluctant, too even though I love to dance and think I might be able to keep up but these Cubans can really, really dance. Especially the guys. We all watch a pretty big guy in a dark green t-shirt who is an artist – twisting and turning, stepping over and under his partner and seeming to float above the floor in spite of his size. He dances with a number of different partners and makes each one look like a pro. I think they must dance here every night and I envy them their simple and joyful pleasure. After a few cuervesas we make our way home – thanks for the colonoscopy – and call it a night at a pretty respectable one o’clock. Pre-game!
Cuba! An eight-day home stay tour of Western Cuba – Day 5
We’re all up early for the long drive from Vinales to Cienfuegos on the south coast, via Havana. Jorge says seven hours including stops and lunch. Breakfast is pancakes, fruit and plaintains. Margurite and I say thank you and good bye to Maga and a shirtless Julian on the porch. One of the girls says there is a law in Cuba that prohibits men from being shirtless but a man’s home is apparently exempt. This is the morning that I realise I’ve been calling our driver ‘Peirot’, which sounds like the spanish equivalent of ‘dog’ when his name is actually Pedro. I apologise with a reasonably straight face and we all have a good laugh.
Our delicious palador luncheon
We are all polite about taking turns in the rear bench of the van which is uncomfortable, especially the middle seat that humps up in the wrong places and has less leg room. I have the front bench for the first part of the drive, between Priti and Nicola who are both dozing before we’ve gone very far. I’m soon flanked by dark, nodding heads. It’s 137 miles to Havana which seems to take a long time at the slow speed of our cautious driver, in spite of the autoway being in quite good condition but it gives us a good opportunity to take in the scenery along the way. We pass many people standing at the side of the road, or braver souls leaning out into traffic in a game of chicken, waving dollar bills in their hands to entice a lift into Havana. Public transit seems unreliable at best and we are told that taxi’s with certain coloured license plates are required by law to pick up people along the route if they have room. Our license plate is blue and anyway, we are full. Groups of people gather under overpasses to wait for public buses, ushered and queued by attendants in yellow shirts. I notice the ubiquitous wood and web rocking chairs being sold at the roadside or from the backs of pick up trucks. We listen to music from Jorge’s iPod - Buena Vista Social Club, Benny More, Enrique Iglesius. A group of schoolgirls stand on a hill in crisp white shirts, and red skirts with suspenders waving madly at the passing traffic and having a great time.
We are soon winding through the Miramar district of Havana, an area of large mansions and expansive gardens that are mostly embassies and consulates. Jorge needs to pick up papers from a government office that closes at noon – just minutes before we pull up. I guess government offices are about the same everywhere. Jorge is disappointed but recovers quickly as we continue on through Havana and turn south toward Cienfuegos.
We are hungry by now and look for someplace along the highway to have lunch. We pull over at what looks like just a gravel pull out at the side of the road but Jorge chats to a guy lounging in a crude shack to one side and we are directed down the drive to a large covered patio with an outdoor kitchen and, luckily something that passes as a bathroom. Barely. The palador (a restaurant not owned by the state) is empty when we get there but soon fills up as we dine on one of the best meals I had in Cuba – crisp roast chicken, a large pork chop, moist chunks of roast pork, cassava, rice and beans, a huge bowl of fresh avocado chunks with dressing and fried ripe plantains. Our meal is briefly interrupted when the cook comes into the yard next to our table looking for a chicken, who sees him coming and after a respectable chase escapes under the fence. We all get a kick out of that.
Memorial to Cuban casualties at the Bay of Pigs invasion
A couple of hours later we reach the coast and the Bay of Pigs. Playa Giron. This is where the Cubans, under Fidel Castro foiled an invasion attempt by the US in 1961. Kennedy was in the White House and this episode is still considered to be his folly. I was nine years old and not old enough to understand the politics, the revolution in a place I’d never heard of, and Russian missiles in silos only a few hundred miles off the coast of the United States. My impressions of war came from stories of my grandfather fighting the Nazis in Italy, and the episodes of “Combat” that my father watched on the television on Saturday nights. Years later I would read about Che Guevarra, the politics of Fidel Castro and the passions of a people divided by their desire for the good life but unwilling to live under direct influence and control of the United States.
But at nine I was mightily impressed and frightened by the prospect of war, the terrifying sound of air raid sirens winding up from the tops of telephone poles in our neighbourhood, and the drills at school where we ducked under our desks for cover. Our mothers talked about building community air raid shelters and speculated about which neighbourhood kids they would, or would not like to be confined with in a bomb shelter. We Johnson kids were known to be pretty self-sufficient so I think we all ended up on the “with” list but I have never been quite sure of that.
I had nightmares about jack-booted soldiers clomping down the stairs and into my basement bedroom and I wasn’t going to wait around for a community shelter to be built. I fashioned my own refuge under our basement stairs, equipping it with essentials – books, pillows, a flashlight and as much candy as my twenty-five cent weekly allowance could buy. As an extra precaution I drilled a hole through the back of the stairs so that from my sheltered position I could see through the stairs to know who was going up or down. My mother soon spotted my peephole which unfortunately also pierced the carpet she had put down on the stairs. She did not get a kick out of that.
Jorge has pointed out the passes in the nearby mountain range where US jets thundered through doing reconnaissance missions prior to the invasion, also where the missle silos were that so threatened all of North America. Being here brings it all into perspective and closes a circle for me. I’m sure lots of Cuban kids had nightmares, too. The names of patriots who gave their lives defending Cuba during the Bay of Pigs invasion are inscribed on plaques displayed alongside Russian tanks and fighter planes. I’m struck by the beauty and the quiet of the place. We would love to take a swim in the Bay but it’s overcast, a bit cool and we are expected in Cienfuegos.
Mall in Cienfuegos
Our home stay casa in Cienfuegos is delightful – a separate suite in a large, ranch style house with a big yard. Our hosts, Oswaldo and Othalis are wonderful. They speak very little english, and our spanish is pitiful but they smile a lot and we return the gesture. A lot. Oswaldo apologizes through gestures for greeting us shirtless. There is a double room for Priti and Nic and a single room for me. There are chickens in the yard and it would become very evident early next morning, a rooster. There are also two very large Alsatian dogs who Oswaldo assures me are more pet than guard. I’m not convinced.
A quick shower and we are off down many blocks off colonnaded prado (boulevard) to a tiny, bright yellow cafe decorated on every wall with paintings of nude women, some of them quite good but all of them somewhat distracting. We are the only customers on this almost-rainy evening and a duo of guitar players descends on us with a vengeance. We battle with this duo for most of the evening as they respond to our spirited
Duelling Guitars
conversation by creeping ever closer and cranking up the volume. Limited menu - spaghetti or pizza. Pizza toppings options are cheese, onions, olives, chorizo. I opt for the pizza, loaded and it’s quite good.
Cuba! An eight-day home stay tour of Western Cuba – Day 4
I must have slept soundly as I am barely awake when Margurite taps on the door for breakfast. A teenager, presumably one of Maga and Julian’s three sons, is sprawled in one of the four wood, web-seated rocking chairs that, along with the television in their midst are the only furnishings in the ‘livingroom’. Maga has prepared our breakfast of crepes and fruit, and an arrangement of three thermoses that contain coffee, hot water and milk. The milk is also hot as Margurite discovers when she downs a glass, thinking it cold. I get a kick out of that. I am distracted at breakfast by a sinister looking pit bull, black with yellow eyes who peers down at us through the roof opening to the neighbours house. I’m not much of a dog person at the best of times and there is nothing friendly or inviting about this fellow. Margurite gets a kick out of that.
We meet the rest of the girls on the porch of their casa and wait for Jorge, who we think is operating on Cuban time. Nine-ish. My kind of guy. Jorge and Pedro arrive and we all pile in the van – only to be unloaded again about half a block up the street. From there we walk what seems like miles through the village, up a dirt laneway, across a small stream to where one big Cuban vaquero is waiting with a string of horses loosely reined to a farmers fence.
- With our trail guide
Most of our group have not ridden before. Priti has had a bad experience so approaches the adventure with some trepidation. No need. These horses have made the same trek out and back many, many times over so rider intervention of any kind is a nuisance they’ve long since learned to ignore. We follow a narrow red dirt path toward the hills past rice and tobacco fields, tarot gardens and the occasional abondoned-looking shack that I suspect is more or less occupied. The day is overcast and looks like it will rain at any minute, but the cloud cover keeps it pleasantly cool and the rain never does materialise. More’s the worse for the local farmers who have been experiencing drought for the past few years. No place on the planet is exempted from climate change. Too bad they couldn’t put an embargo on that. The horses are similar to the small, muscular animals we’ve seen pulling the two-wheeled dog carts in Vinales. Dani, who has decided to wear her white jeans is delighted when our mounts wade knee-deep through several huge puddles of red mud along the way.
The backs of our legs are all splashed in red mud by the time we pull up at an open shed, tether our horses and are welcomed by a wiry young vaquero with piercing blue eyes and almost no English. On the crude wooden table a line up of fresh coconuts, pomelos and bottle of golden honey. Our host proceeds to chop the top off the coconuts, squeeze in the juice of the pomelos, add the honey and ducks into the adjoining hut to emerge with a bottle of vodka. Yummy! I will definitely be trying this at home. After throughly enjoying our refreshing drinks the vaquero offers to show us how to roll a cigar from a pile of dried tobacco leaves. He uses scissors to cut a long, rectangular strip from a large leaf for the wrapper, bunches together a handful of leaves for the filler, trims the ends and lays them across the wrapping strip before winding it snuggly around the bunched leaves. Once trimmed up it does look remarkably like a cigar and quite smokable. Tempting. The vaquero speaks very little english and Dani, having taken a ten-week course in spanish while traveling in Spain makes a valiant attempt at translating, which we all find hilarious as much of it is guesswork, made all the more challenging by all of us chipping in excitedly when we think we hear some identifiable word or term. Our coconut drinks might have been taking effect.
It’s a quiet ride back to our starting point. The sun is out, it’s very hot and humid and we are all feeling the very nice effects of our coconut cocktails. We thank and tip our trail guide and the rest of the girls head back to meet Jorge for the afternoon activity – a trip to see local caves and cave paintings in the hills.
I’m tired and feel the need for some down time so I take my iPad to a cafe on a corner of the busy main street and order lunch. Spaghetti is the only alternative to ham, cheese or ham and cheese sandwiches. It’s topped – wouldn’t you know it - with shredded ham and chunks of white, soft cheese on a too-small circle of something that tasted like tomato soup. I’m realising that everything tastes better with beer so I accompany it with another local brand, Bucanero.
I thoroughly enjoy watching the world go by this busy street corner - village women doing their shopping, lots of young men hanging about the doorways of small sparse shops and food stands, decrepit looking old cars, many dog carts and in surprising contrast a brand-new high end Mercedes that creeps along a narrow side street carefully avoiding the foot traffic. I update my journal with notes about the preceding days, send off a long email to family and then head back to the casa for an afternoon siesta. I really wish we would adopt that custom in Canada. So civilised. 
I’m wakened by Jo’s tap on the door. We are all going to a party with friends of Jorge’s. They’re roasting a pig! Which I guess in Vinales is the nicest way to welcome visitors. Off we go to the edge of Vinales and then down a narrow alleyway between shacks and small houses to a small, colourful two-story house at the end of the alley. We hear the party before we see it – raucous yelling and the slamming of tiles. On the patio in front of the house four Cubans are ranged around a spindly-looking table, on delicate looking wrought iron chairs playing an almost-violent game of dominoes, loudly disputing every move and at times sweeping the whole game off the table in humourous outrage. We crack open our hostess gifts of rum and coca cola and are soon swigging Cuba libres and eating fragrant chunks of roasted pig.
Dominoes is something of a national sport in Cuba. We saw games being played on the streets, sidewalks and in cafes everywhere. This particular game is played as partners, sort of like bridge. I watched for some time as wild-haired Neuka, in jeans that barely manage to corral her ample backside and her partner Bebino, a musician who has played both the Vancouver and Toronto jazz festivals challenge Eileen, from the UK and her Cuban boyfriend, Ivan who runs The Club in town. He is hoping to emigrate. Eileen tells me that they will get married to facilitate this. There is another European there, Britten from Switzerland also with a Cuban boyfriend hoping to emigrate. Although the domino game itself, to me at least did not appear to be exceptionally entertaining, the banter around the table and the excitement over a particularly good, or bad move is drama at it’s best with much slamming of tiles, uproarious shouts back and forth and animated cursing (I think) between partners for a questionable move. Margurite took a turn at the table, as did Joanne but both were soundly and hilariously beaten. Winning involves counting the dominoes that are played or that are out of teh game, and deducing what your partner holds so you can play to it. I believe the games would go on all night except that most of the players are also the musicians who play at The Club in Vinales every night at nine.
I never figured out who was hosting the party or who stayed at the little house. As yet there is limited property ownership in Cuba. Houses are assigned by the government. The main floor was three small rooms in a row running front to back. The first room was empty but housed the precarious table and chairs in the front yard. Behind that was the kitchen – an L-shaped counter filled with bottles, glasses and plates of roast pig, a small gas cooker, an ancient refrigerator (filled with rum and coca cola) and a rusty sink. A television blared loudly from the room at the back of the house – a video of local musicians playing salsa. Several of the ubiquitous wood and web rocking chairs were ranged around the room. We saw these rockers sold at the roadside in a number of places. They seem to be a staple in Cuban households, at least in the country. A tall, thin girl with a full mouth of shiny braces and swaying hips was giving salsa lessons. No great dancers in our group but lots of fun anyway.
The domino players start to gather up instruments, drum parts and speakers and head down the alley for the walk through town to The Club. Nic, Priti, Joanne and I walk into Vinales for dinner while Dani and Margurite hang back at the house. We eat at Don Thomas, a relatively upscale two-story spot with a front garden and a fountain. It’s newly opened. We share plates of grilled fish, a delicatessen dish of chicken, pork, sausage and the ever-present processed ham, rice and beans, root vegetables all very tasty. The ice cream and creme caramel (Cubans call it flan) for dessert is delicious and all through our meal we are serenaded by a very good trio – guitar, bass and drum.
It’s home to bed after that. We learn next morning that Dani and Margurite carried on to dinner with Jorge and Pedro, a long drive out of Vinales to a spot that sounds like it was at the top of one of the towering mogotes. We also learn that Pedro, who has said very little during the trip so far, speaks very good english.
Cuba! An eight-day home stay tour of Western Cuba – Day 3
- Danielle and friend in Plaza des Armes
A rushed morning of preparations. Get cash from the hotel cambio, check out of the hotel, arrange to store a bag for the week and wonder if I’ll see it again, throw down a pancake and the same bad coffee as yesterday. Meet the rest of the tour. Danielle and Joanne have made it in from Mexico. They are from different parts of Australia, not traveling together. Margurite from the US via the Bahamas fills out our group. Jorge goes through the tour briefing for the sake of the newcomers. I’m distracted by the workers high up on scaffolding that takes up a significant part of the lobby, restoring the ceiling in broad swaths of “looks like wood” brown and ochre paint. The huge beams that straddle the ceiling at eight foot intervals are also being repainted with large poppy-like flowers in shades of oranges and golds. It’s not the Sistine Chapel but the amount of work it will take to complete the restoration is still impressive.
We throw our bags in the back of the van that will be our home-on-the-road for the week and meet our driver. His name is Pedro but somehow I missed that. Distracted perhaps with the ceiling painters, as a result I spend at least a few days addressing him in something that sounds like Pierot, which is apparently Spanish for dog. I wonder why he is so unresponsive. Pedro drops us off for a walking tour of Old Havana. I’m pleased to be visiting my second UNESCO World Heritage site, the first being Luang Prabang, Laos last year. I think about making it my life’s mission to see all of the UNESCO sites before I die. Seeing the wooden cobblestones in Plaza des Armas and remnants of the ancient sewage system that once serviced the port of Havana, I realise how very important the UNESCO project is in preventing the world in it’s entirely from eventually looking all the same. I have certainly felt some urgency to see as much of the world as I can before all cities and towns have succumbed to the sameness of Wal-Mart and McDonald’s.
- Gracious peanut seller in Plaza Vieja
We stop for ”the best coffee in Havana” at a cafe in Plaza Vieja (Old Square) where I hear the deep throated song of a woman selling peanuts. The song is known as a pregon, or sellers cry and few vendors still use this enchanting and exotic method of broadcasting their wares. I buy a few straws of peanuts and she poses for a photo. Cuba’s recently introduced program of restoring major buildings is very evident in the large, open plaza and includes a beautiful new planetarium. The coffee is wonderful.
Off Plaza de la Catedral we stop at the bar that allegedly invented the mojito so we we all drink a mojito and listen to great salsa music from the three piece band squeezed into the corner of the tiny, crowded bar. Music is everywhere in Old Havana. Along the way we lean into the open windows of a large restaurant to listen to a five piece band playing Buena Vista Social Club favourites. A couple of professional dancers are pulling patrons up to learn to salsa. We go into the Ambos Mundos Hotel, where Ernest Hemingway stayed in Room 511 in 1928 to write ”For Whom the Bell Tolls”. We take the ancient, wrought iron lift to the top of the hotel to a lovely restaurant where we all soaked in the gorgeous views from the rooftop and took photos. I resolve to come here for dinner on one of the extra nights at the end of the tour. On the way back to the van we pass the oldest standing structure in Havana, a temple with a large tree in the courtyard that Jorge says is a ‘cotton silk’ tree.
We settle into the van for a few hours drive to the Vinales Valley , another UNESCO World Heritage site. An hour or so into the drive we stop at a state-run cafe at the side of the road. They have three kinds of sandwiches – ham, cheese, or ham and cheese. We eat ham and cheese on hamburger buns, barely toasted and I have a Cristal beer. After our quick lunch we are on our way to the next stop – an orchid garden. We see the large display of orchids in a sheltered nursery, some endemic only to Cuba and then walk the winding stone paths through beautifully landscaped gardens. Our garden tour guide points out the plants along the way, including the delicate and reclusive mimosa that closes it’s feathery leaves at the lightest touch. Very cool. The groundskeepers house at the top of the garden walk is particularly quaint and lovely – a place I could see myself spending some time with it’s sunny patio and charming bridge between moss covered boulders. We make a quick banos stop at the restaurant at the foot of the gardens and are on our way.
Approaching Vinales we stop at a viewpoint that looks over the entire valley. Gorgeous views of the lush farmland, interrupted sporadically by mountainous, high rock outcroppings that remind me of the giant karsts rising from the seas around Krabi in southern Thailand. Sure enough, Jorge points out that only one other place in the world has these ”mogotes” (pin cushions) and that’s in the Indo China Sea.
- Vinales Valley
Vinales is a small agricultural village of about 10,000 people. The primary mode of transportation seems to be the small wooden dog carts, pulled by a single, small and thin horse that we’ve seen occasionally along the road on our drive in. There are some cars, some bicycles and occassionally a string of large bulls or oxen (?) being driven along the street by their driver or hauling very large wooden farm wagons. We are checked into our first home stay casas. Margurite and I have single rooms in the home of Maga and Julian, while the four others are sharing double rooms in the casa next door. The casas are small and sparsely furnished but are clean and comfortable. They are also very close to each other as we can hear the girls next door getting settled into their rooms.
Jorge gives us a tour of the town – one cobbled main street with state-owned shops, a few cafes and, of course a large central square where it apparently all happens. The large church Roman Catholic and the only nightclub in town compete for souls at opposite ends of the plaza. We dine with our hosts on this night – delicious roast chicken, boiled yuca, sliced cucumber and green tomatoes, and a plate of fresh fruit for dessert. Cuba prides itself on fruits and vegetables being ‘organic’ – grown with minimal pesticides – and it is all tasty but very limited in variety as there are virtually no food imports but I would develop an aversion to ham and cheese before our tour is over. I’m very glad Margurite and I are together as our hosts speak only a few words of English, and with our few words of Spanish the table conversation is a bit of a challenge. Between the two of us we manage to communicate where we are from and a little bit about ourselves and we are able to learn that Maga and Julian have three boys who eat a lot and are very busy with school and sports.
- A home stay casa in Vinales
After dinner we all walk over to the main square with Jorge to drink beer and watch the salsa dancers at The Club. Man, oh man Cubans can dance. We were mesmerised by a number of couples who twisted and turned so fast I could not follow their steps. We were all quite happy to remain glued to our chairs watching the gyrations on the dance floor all evening. Back at our casa the television is cranked up, a dog is barking and a child is wailing in a neighboring house. My last thought as I dose off is ‘How will I ever sleep through all the noise…..”
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Cuba! An eight-day home stay tour of Western Cuba – Day 2
Slow morning. It looks overcast but the breeze that still blows through my open window is warm. I have the day ahead of me before I will join my tour for dinner this evening. I make it down for breakfast in the basement of the Nacional – buffet tables of fruit, pastries, meats and cheeses, an omelette and crepe station and an espresso bar. Not exactly Starbucks but any port in a storm. Breakfast is pretty good accompanied by possibly the worst cup of coffee I’ve ever had. Finding a good cup of coffee would turn out to be a recurring theme throughout the week.
- “Candilejas”
The cab into Old Havana takes me along the long curve of the almost deserted Malecon. A few fishers toss lines from long poles over the sea wall. On the other side of the busy, four lane thoroughfare street after street of exquisitely ornate but ravaged looking concrete buildings with remnants of paint, colours long since peeled away to be indistinguishable one from another. The bleakness is broken occasionally by a lucky building whose number has been pulled in the restoration project lottery, freshly painted in bright pinks, yellows, greens and blues – a hint of the changes that everyone, including Cubans feel is coming. I stroll the cobblestone streets that connect the various plazas of Old Havana and am caught by the sweet and mellow sounds of a clarinet quartet – “Candilejas” - playing Ava Maria in a cafe. I’m happy to spend an hour sipping a very good capuccino and listening to the haunting melodies – a mix of traditional Cuban and North American favourites – until the repertoire begins to repeat itself. I’m very happy to be able to purchase both of their CD’s and I pick up some additional copies as gifts.
Lunch is a seafood “enchilada” at a cafe in the Plaza des Armes, while watching a colourful band of musicians and stilt-dancers. No sign of an enchilada but the stew of shrimp and vegetables in tomato sauce is quite good, washed down with a local beer – Cristal. Local beer would also be a recurring theme throughout the week. Then it’s a ride by Coco cab back to the hotel and a couple of hours by the pool.
Our tour group gathers in the Nacional lobby by seven – at least those of us who are in. Priti, Nicola and I meet our tour leader, Jorge and get the run-down. Two other women are still en route from Mexico and the other of our group is not joining us for dinner. Priti and Nicola are friends from London, travelling together. Lovely women who both work in fabric technology. I booked this tour online through Cuban Adventures who have a terrific, helpful and very descriptive web site. I’ve also been able to talk with their booking agent in Vancouver – Great Expeditions – to get some sense of what to expect. I have not toured with a group before and wonder how it will go.
Dinner is at Castropol – a newly refurbished splash of bright yellow along the Malecon toward Old Havana. We are joined by friends of
- The Castropol Restaurant – our guide, Jorge
Jorge’s that includes another Cuban Adventure tour guide, Romey and his girlfriend, and two friends of theirs from Estonia who are visiting Cuba. Good food – I have the grilled fish – and passionate conversations mostly about Cuba. Much country pride from Jorge and his buddies, with the occasional hint of dissatisfaction with the way the system works - the isolation of not being able to travel freely, the lack of meaningful opposition to government and the limit on information into the country. Occasional contributions from the Estonians on their experience with transitional economies, and rarer interjections from the three of us on systems in Canada and Britain. I am respectful about expressing any kind of opinion about Cuba, particularly in the context of recent world events that make Cuba feel, at least to me, like a bit of a safe haven against the chaos that rocks the democratic governments of Europe and the US.
We get a lift back to the Nacional with one of the Estonians and call it a night fairly early in anticipation of our first full tour day tomorrow.
Terri Johnson
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wscstgrl
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